of his device. And indeed
nothing could be more marvellous than these lights showing a miniature
presentment of the harmony of the spheres, such as it is set out by
Aristotle and his commentators. The cockroaches themselves were
invisible; only the little flames they carried could be seen, which
seemed to be all alive. Just as these same lights were weaving in the
darkness of the room more cycles and epicycles than ever Ptolemy and the
Arabs observed as they watched the motions of the planets, Tafi's voice
made itself heard, shriller than ever, what with a cold in the head and
what with annoyance.

"Buffalmacco! Buffalmacco, I say!" screamed the old fellow, coughing and
spitting, "get up, I say! Get up, you scoundrel! In less than an hour's
time, it will be broad daylight. The bugs in your bed must be built like
very Venuses, you are so loath to leave 'em. Up, you sluggard! If you
don't rise this instant, I'll drag you from between the sheets by the
hair of your head and your long ears!"

These were the sort of terms in which the master would call his pupil
out of bed in the dusk of every morning, such was his zeal for painting
and mosaic-work. On this occasion receiving no reply, he drew on his
hose, but without taking time to pull them any higher than his knees,
and started for his apprentice's bedroom, stumbling at every step. This
was exactly what Buffalmacco expected, and directly he heard the clatter
of his master's footsteps on the stairs, he turned his nose to the wall
and pretended to be fast asleep. And there was old Tafi shouting up the
stairs:

"Hilloa! but you're a grand sleeper. I'll have you out of your slumbers,
I will, though you should be dreaming this very moment that the eleven
thousand virgins are slipping into your bed, begging you to teach 'em
what's what."

With these words on his lips, Andrea Tafi shoved the door of the room
violently open.

Then, catching sight of the points of fire running all over the floor,
he stopped dead on the landing and fell a-trembling in every limb.

"They're devils," he thought, "never a doubt of it,--devils and evil
spirits. Why! they move with a sort of mathematical precision, which is
their strong point, I've always been told. Naturally the Demons hate us
painters, who depict them under hideous shapes, in contrast with the
Angels we represent in glory, an aureole about their brows and waving
wings of dazzling splendour. The unhappy boy is beset with devils;